Manuscript submitted to: Journal of Engineering Technology Saxon J. Ryan and Gretchen A. Mosher
Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University
Abstract
This research investigated the Clifton StrengthsFinder (CSF) leadership domains of engineering and technology students in an engineering department within a large, Midwestern, research-intensive, land-grant university to characterize groups in the department by their leadership domains. In the department, students are taught about strengths as early in their program to help them better understand how to utilize their unique talents to be successful, but limited analysis has occurred on these data. The purpose of this research was to analyze the student strengths data to identify potential patterns of leadership domains among the students. The previous three years of student strengths data were collected and analyzed to identify differences between gender and type of major (technology or engineering) in the department. The number of strengths in each domain and the frequency of dominant domains was analyzed for each group of gender and major. Previous research suggests that there should be no patterns of strengths or best set of strengths for specific majors or on the basis of gender. This research has identified multiple patterns of leadership domains among the different groups in the department. The leadership domain Executing was the most frequently occurring dominant domain across all groups in the department except for technology major females. Technology female students had the most prevalent dominant leadership domain of Relationship building.
Introduction
The Clifton StrengthsFinder (CSF) has been shown to increase workplace success around the world in industry and academia (Asplund et al. 2014; Cantwell 2006; Tomkovick and
Swanson 2014). Cantwell (2006) reported increased student engagement on the basis of
attendance, attention, and students seeking information when using a strengths-based education approach. Asplund et al. (2014) reports the use of strengths as a starting point to excelling in tasks. This research is a component of a larger research project exploring the role of strengths in the classroom success of students in an engineering department at a large four-year, public, research-intensive land-grant university. The department enrolls students in two fields of study: technology and engineering. All departmental majors are taught about their strengths early in their degree program. Students are introduced to the CSF to help them better utilize their talents to be successful (Louis 2012).
The engineering and technology degree programs are thought to draw students with similar interests (i.e. in STEM-based problem-solving). The technology programs focus more on hands on and applied aspects of learning, while the focus of the engineering programs is more related to the theoretical and conceptual aspects of learning. Other researchers have explored factors predicting student success in the technology (Mosher 2018) and engineering programs (Kaleita et al. 2016), noting that success predictors differ between the engineering and
technology degree programs. Specifically, common academic factors that were significant predictors of GPA for engineering students were not significant predictors of GPA for technology students. Further, there was little difference between engineering and technology student performance on academic indicators such as high school class rank, high school GPA, ACT scores, and placement test scores indicating there is some other factor not being assessed to explain the differences. This led to a hypothesis that students could be characterized by the
Clifton StrengthsFinder to assist in explaining these differences and provide insight into advising and curricular implications.
The Clifton StrengthsFinder
Research exploring a multitude of factors influencing student success has been conducted across the country in several fields of study. Kahu and Nelson (2018) argue that while student retention and success has been widely studied and repeatedly, one factor that often emerges to predict retention and success is student engagement. Furlong, Gilman, Huebner, and (2014) and Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) focus on positive psychology. They describe how strengths-based initiatives assist students in identifying their talents, leading them to engage in activities that further develop their talents and abilities. There is limited research exploring the connection between successful students and their strengths. By characterizing the CSF strengths of current students, potential patterns of successful students can be identified. This
characterization also facilitates more targeted and purposeful instruction, to better allow educators to reach each student by preparing them to approach problems in their disciplinary field using their strengths.
The Clifton StrengthsFinder (CSF) is a tool used by people to measure what they are good at to identify where to focus their efforts to build their strengths (Asplund et al. 2014). In other words, strengths are the mastery of someone’s talents through practice and application (Rath and Conchie 2008). When people understand their strengths, they better understand how they can excel in what they are doing rather than just meeting expectations (Louis 2012). Rath and Conchie (2008) argue that if you spend your life trying to be good at everything you will never be good at anything. They describe the CSF as a tool to identify what you are already good at so that you can invest in them to excel in those areas. One can spend time trying to enhance
what they aren’t good at but Rath and Conchie (2008) argue this could lead to a person with a long list of mediocre abilities rather than a small list of things you excel at.
The CSF is an online survey tool where participants are given a statement related to common situations and asked to rank how well the statement describes them. These common situations are related to one of 34 different themes, where each theme is a strength. Depending on how the participant answers the questions, the themes will be ranked from most to least prevalent. The top 5 themes, or strengths, are provided to the participant as the result (Asplund et al. 2014). Each of the top 5 strengths that are provided to the participants, can be categorized into leadership domains. There are 4 leadership domains, Executing, Influencing, Relationship
Building, and Strategic Thinking (Asplund et al. 2014).
Reliability and validity are important to understand before using a testing methodology such as the CSF (Schreiner 2006). The reliability, human responses remain constant over time, and validity, how well the CSF measures themes of aptitude, of the CSF a factors that may be scrutinized. Schreiner (2006) compared results of the CSF with valid and reliable psychological tests, California Psychological Inventory (CPI) and the 16 Personality Factor (16PF) test. The CPI and 16PF were chosen as baselines comparisons because of their relatedness to the strengths provided in the CSF. Schreiner (2006) describes the appropriate use of the CSF as a tool for personal development and growth as well as providing a foundation for students’ development through their college careers.
CSF Leadership Domains
The CSF is not only a tool to provide people with their strengths, it also categorizes strengths into leadership domains. The leadership domains broaden the description of what people are good at as well as how their strengths can be used in leadership roles. Colleges and
universities aim to generate leaders in the fields of study offered within the institution. In reviewing strategic plans for peer universities, many strategic plans include student leadership development as a learning goal (University of Wisconsin 2015; University of Missouri 2018; Iowa State University. Office of the President 2017; University of Nebraska – Lincoln 2015; Purdue. College of Agriculture 2015). Defining leadership as an outcome or goal is prominent throughout academia and education institutions. Institutions strive to teach leadership but do not emphasize the foundation and definition on what leadership means.
The CSF identified the four domains of leadership as Executing, Influencing,
Relationship Building, and Strategic Thinking. Leadership domains are broader and better used to describe a person’s strengths in terms of contribution to a team than the more detailed 34 individual strengths used as personal development information (Rath and Conchie 2008). The way people use different strengths within the domain will vary but they will all find a way to complete the task presented to them. It has also been found that teams with a distribution of leadership domains form a stronger team (Allen et al. 2013; Rath and Conchie, 2008; Shimazoe and Aldrich 2010). The teams formed with leadership domains in mind are typically stronger because they are diverse in terms of abilities, talents, and in the way people operate.
The Executing domain of leadership is composed of strengths that help people get things done. This type of leader effectively organizes tasks, people, and ideas for efficient and effective completion or use. Leaders in the Influencing domain help to reach out and sell the teams ideas and are the ones that typically act as the spokesperson for the team. People who lead with the Relationship Building domain help to keep the team working together effectively through group organization or individual motivation. They often know how to connect the right people to the right project for optimum completion. Finally, leaders who employ the Strategic Thinking
domain focus on what could be through the reception and analysis of information. They enjoy thinking broadly about the vision and next steps to help the team make better informed choices (Rath and Conchie 2008). The strengths in each leadership domain are shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Strengths Within Each Leadership Domain.
Executing Influencing Relationship Building Strategic Thinking
Achiever Activator Adaptability Analytical
Arranger Command Developer Context
Belief Communication Connectedness Futuristic
Consistency Competition Empathy Ideation
Deliberative Maximizer Harmony Input
Discipline Self-Assurance Includer Intellection
Focus Significance Individualization Learner
Responsibility Woo Positivity Strategic
Restorative Relator
Leadership Domains and Academics
Kahu and Nelson (2018) have described how student success is linked to engagement. When students know how they can contribute to a team, the team and the students are more engaged and successful. There is limited research on leadership domains in the academic
context, although some researchers have identified patterns of strengths based on fields of study. Lorimer and Davis (2015) analyzed engineering students’ leadership domains to identify where engineering students could excel on teams and where the shortfalls were. Janke et al. (2015) found similarities in pharmaceutical student strengths across five Midwestern universities as well as differences between genders. Royal et al. (2018) characterized veterinary medicine students to identify “strengths norms”. A replication of Royal et al. (2018) was completed by Royal and Huckel (2019) with a different sample and admissions committee that provided evidence to confirm the original research of Royal et al. (2018).
There is currently limited research on the patterns and prevalence of leadership domains. One way of classifying the influence of leadership domains is through the use of “dominant leadership domains” where three or more of the participants’ top five strengths reside in a single leadership domain (Janke et al. 2015). Having a dominant leadership domain implies that the person’s leadership skills will emphasize one “area” of strengths. For example, people with a dominant leadership domain in Strategic Thinking may show their leadership by generating great ideas and plans. Strategic Thinking leaders may have limited strengths in actually executing the ideas they develop or in putting a team together to implement the idea. For this reason, people with a dominant leadership domain may struggle to undertake a project by themselves. On a team, however, these people will likely contribute their strengths in planning and conceptualizing ideas. Placing people on a team with those who lead differently is more likely to result in
stronger, more well-rounded teams that can tackle comprehensive projects and complete them on time and within budget (Allen et al. 2013; Rath and Conchie 2008).
Within the department, students often learn through working on teams. More information about student leadership domains has the potential to optimize the teaming experience for both students and instructors (Allen et al. 2013; Rath and Conchie, 2008). Accordingly, the purpose of this research is to characterize and examine the leadership domains of departmental students. Specifically, the purpose is to identify the leadership domains students possess and to determine if there are patterns of dominant leadership domains among students. If patters of leadership domains emerge, they will serve as the foundation for future research on curricular changes and advising strategies in the department.
Research goals
The distribution of departmental student leadership domains is currently unknown. Thus, this research aims to identify and characterize the leadership domains of the students in the department. The focus is to answer the following research questions:
• What are the leadership domains of the students in the department?
• What are the differences in leadership domain profiles between males and females in the department?
• What are the leadership domain profiles of technology and engineering students in the department?
Methodology
Data were gathered from a required departmental entry level course with mostly freshman and sophomores each semester from Spring of 2016 to Fall of 2018 where students complete the Clifton StrengthsFinder (CSF). Gender information was provided from the
registrar’s office and included only male and female gender categories. Personal and identifying information was removed from data before analysis. All departmental students who took the CSF in the time frame were included in the data set. Students with majors outside of the department were removed from the data set. Additionally, students with no corresponding academic data were also removed from the data set. The final data set totaled 826 students, after removing 21 non-departmental majors and 1 student without academic data. This research was reviewed by the institutional review board and was declared exempt. The data set was then split into groups by gender and major. These classifications are summarized in Table 2. Analysis was performed on each group to determine patterns and distributions.
Table 2. Characterization Groups.
Group Number Group Description Number of Students
1 All departmental students 826
2 All Male departmental Students 732
3 All Female departmental Students 94
4 All Technology Students 619
5 Male Technology Students 578
6 Female Technology Students 41
7 All Engineering Students 207
8 Male Engineering Students 154
9 Female Engineering Students 53
To characterize the strengths and leadership domains for each student, the first step was to quantify the number of strengths in each leadership domain for each student. Then, for each student the top five strengths were categorized into domains and the number of the strengths per domain were quantified. This characterization described how many strengths each student had in one of the four leadership domains. It is important to be aware of dominant domains when building teams to ensure teams are diversified in terms of strengths. Each of the groups had a “dominant count” and percentage that was the number of students with three or more of the five strengths in a single domain and the percentage of students who were considered “dominant” in that leadership domain. For example, if a student had Analytical, Deliberative, Learner,
Futuristic and Relator as their top five strengths this would translate to three strengths in the Strategic Thinking domain, Analytical, Learner, and Futuristic, one strength in the Executing domain, Deliberative, and one strength in the Relationship Building domain, Relator. Further, because there are three strengths in one domain, this student would be counted as a student with a dominant domain of Strategic Thinking.
Results
The first characterization was completed at the departmental level, split by gender, summarized in Table 3. The most dominant leadership domain for all departmental students was the Executing domain, with nearly one quarter of students in the department who have a
dominant leadership domain fall within the Executing leadership domain. Further, the prevalence of dominant leadership domains across departmental groups, from most to least prevalent, was Executing, Relationship Building, Strategic Thinking and Influencing. When observing students with none of their top five strengths in a given leadership domain, nearly half of students in the department have zero of their top five strengths in the Influencing leadership domain. This pattern continues when observing males and females in the department. In two leadership domains, Relationship Building and Strategic Thinking, the number of male and female students with none of their top five strengths in these domains are nearly equal (approximately 200 students each with no strengths in these leadership domains). With the Influencing leadership domain, nearly twice the number of students have none of their top five strengths in that domain as compared with the Relationship Building and Strategic Thinking domains.
Table 3. Number of Students with Number of Strengths Per Leadership Domain: All Departmental Students.
Executing Influencing Relationship
Building Thinking Strategic
All Departmental Students N=826 5 Strengths 3 4 2 2 4 Strengths 35 12 23 10 3 Strengths 141 44 102 76 2 Strengths 235 126 216 209 1 Strength 274 240 271 309 0 Strengths 138 400 212 220 Dominant Count 179 60 127 88 Dominant Percent 21.67% 7.26% 15.38% 10.65% Male Departmental Students N=732 5 Strengths 3 3 2 2 4 Strengths 26 12 21 10 3 Strengths 126 40 84 63 2 Strengths 207 116 198 180 1 Strength 247 223 239 284 0 Strengths 123 338 188 193 Dominant Count 155 55 107 75 Dominant Percent 21.17% 7.51% 14.62% 10.25% Female Departmental Students N=94 5 Strengths 0 1 0 0 4 Strengths 9 0 2 0 3 Strengths 15 4 18 13 2 Strengths 28 10 18 29 1 Strength 27 17 32 25 0 Strengths 15 62 24 27 Dominant Count 24 5 20 13 Dominant Percent 25.53% 5.32% 21.28% 13.83%
The second characterization was completed on the department’s technology students and is summarized in Table 4. The most dominant domain among technology students was Executing with nearly one fifth of the students having a dominant Executing domain. When observing males and females in technology, the males are most dominant in Executing while the most dominant leadership domain for females was Relationship Building. With males in technology, the most to least prevalent leadership domains were Executing, Relationship Building, Strategic Thinking, and Influencing. For females in technology, the most to least dominant leadership domains were Relationship Building, Executing, Strategic Thinking, and Influencing. Similar to the department as a whole, nearly half of the technology students, both males and females, have none of their top five strengths in the Influencing leadership domain. Further, the remaining leadership domains, Executing, Relationship Building and Strategic Thinking, have
approximately 15% to 25% of the students with none of their top five strengths in them relatively different from the approximate 50% of students with none of their top five strengths in
Influencing.
The third characterization was completed on the engineering students in the department and is summarized in Table 5. The most dominant leadership domain among engineering students was Executing. More than one quarter of all engineering students hold Executing as their dominant leadership domain. The prevalence of dominant leadership domains for engineering students, from most to least prevalent, was Executing, Strategic Thinking, Relationship Building and Influencing. The engineering students are different from the
technology students in that Relationship Building and Strategic Thinking are nearly identical in dominant domain prevalence, approximately 13%. Just as with the technology male and female groups, the least prevalent dominant leadership domain of engineering students is the Influencing
domain. Approximately 60% of all engineering students have none of their top five strengths in the Influencing leadership domain.
Table 4. Number of Students with Number of Strengths Per Leadership Domain: Technology Students.
Executing Influencing Relationship
Building Thinking Strategic
All Technology Students N=619 5 Strengths 3 4 2 2 4 Strengths 28 12 14 6 3 Strengths 89 31 84 52 2 Strengths 176 106 167 146 1 Strength 212 190 206 234 0 Strengths 111 276 146 179 Dominant Count 120 47 100 60 Dominant Percent 19.39% 7.59% 16.16% 9.69% Male Technology Students N=578 5 Strengths 3 3 2 2 4 Strengths 23 12 13 6 3 Strengths 85 31 73 50 2 Strengths 165 101 157 134 1 Strength 198 178 195 222 0 Strengths 104 253 138 164 Dominant Count 111 46 88 58 Dominant Percent 19.20% 7.96% 15.22% 10.03% Female Technology Students N=41 5 Strengths 0 1 0 0 4 Strengths 5 0 1 0 3 Strengths 4 0 11 2 2 Strengths 11 5 10 12 1 Strength 14 12 11 12 0 Strengths 7 23 8 15 Dominant Count 9 1 12 2 Dominant Percent 21.95% 2.44% 29.27% 4.88%
Table 5. Number of Students with Number of Strengths Per Leadership Domain: Engineering Students.
Executing Influencing Relationship Building Thinking Strategic
All Engineering Students N=207 5 Strengths 0 0 0 0 4 Strengths 7 0 9 4 3 Strengths 52 13 18 24 2 Strengths 59 20 49 63 1 Strength 62 50 65 75 0 Strengths 27 124 66 41 Dominant Count 59 13 27 28 Dominant Percent 28.50% 6.28% 13.04% 13.53% Male Engineering Students N=154 5 Strengths 0 0 0 0 4 Strengths 3 0 8 4 3 Strengths 41 9 11 13 2 Strengths 42 15 41 46 1 Strength 49 45 44 62 0 Strengths 19 85 50 29 Dominant Count 44 9 19 17 Dominant Percent 28.57% 5.84% 12.34% 11.04% Female Engineering Students N=53 5 Strengths 0 0 0 0 4 Strengths 4 0 1 0 3 Strengths 11 4 7 11 2 Strengths 17 5 8 17 1 Strength 13 5 21 13 0 Strengths 8 39 16 12 Dominant Count 15 4 8 11 Dominant Percent 28.30% 7.55% 15.09% 20.75%